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Jakarta Post

Jakarta ‘in critical phase’ as COVID-19 cases surge

Officials locked in blame game despite early warning signs

Nina A. Loasana (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Tue, June 15, 2021

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Jakarta ‘in critical phase’ as COVID-19 cases surge

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akarta has seen an alarming resurgence of COVID-19 cases in the past week, with officials and experts saying that the capital is now in a “critical phase” and could see a higher spike than the last wave of infections in January

On Sunday, Jakarta recorded some 2,700 new confirmed cases – the highest since February, when the capital saw a surge of infections following the year-end holidays.

The city's positivity rate, which is the percentage of positive results from all tests conducted, increased by 8 percent to 17 percent in the past week. With Jakarta health authorities having recently doubled the city's testing rate to around 75,000 people daily on a seven-day average – almost eight times the minimum rate that the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends – the high positivity rate indicates that virus transmission has significantly increased among the population.

Active cases in Jakarta have also increased by 50 percent in the past week from 11,500 to 17,400 cases, causing hospital beds to fill up fast with COVID-19 patients. Within a one-week period, the bed occupancy rate (BOR) in Jakarta increased from 45 to 75 percent.

The BOR at the emergency COVID-19 hospital set up in the former athletes village in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, reached 83 percent on Monday, with 5,028 out of its 5,994 beds being occupied.

The hospital's coordinator for health workers, Lt. Col. M. Arifin, said capacity was being expanded to meet demand.

“We have prepared 2,000 more beds to anticipate the surge in patients. Usually one room has two beds but if necessary we'll put three beds in a room,” he said on Saturday, as quoted by Kompas.com.

“If the additional beds are not enough to accommodate the COVID-19 patients, we'll use two buildings that are usually used to quarantine people who have just returned from other countries,” he added.

At the Pasar Minggu Regional Hospital (RSUD) in South Jakarta, just 15 of its 215 beds for COVID-19 patients were vacant, deputy financial and general affairs director Yeni Restuti said as of Sunday.

“Our bed occupancy rate has reached 80 percent,” Yeni said, as reported by Tribunnews.com.

Who’s to blame?

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan said the capital was entering “a very critical phase” and warned that health facilities might be at a risk of collapsing, as happened in February when the city recorded its highest case spike.

“We need to do something; we need to be more serious in enforcing health protocols and [authorities] need to take action against people who violate health rules,” he said on Sunday.

The governor has urged Jakartans to be more disciplined in abiding with COVID-19 measures. “We are responsible for the situation we face right now. The only way to take responsibility is by enforcing health protocols, not letting our guard down and becoming more disciplined,” he said.

But the capital is not the only province that has seen a sharp spike in cases in recent weeks. Central Java and parts of East Java have recorded rising case numbers in the weeks after the Idul Fitri holidays, when millions of people returned to their hometowns despite a government ban, meeting friends and relatives there and flocking to tourist spots.

Kudus regency in Central Java saw an extreme spike in transmissions with cases increasing 30-fold during the week of May 24-30, while bed occupancy rates hovered around 90 percent.

The central government previously pinned the blame on the failure of regional administrators in preventing the movement of people during the Idul Fitri holiday despite a clear ban on mudik – the annual practice of returning to one’s hometown to gather with relatives and loved ones.

The Health Ministry’s acting director general for disease control and prevention, Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, attributed the surge in cases to the low rates of testing and tracing.

“It is proven now that regional administrations, which are lacking in COVID-19 testing and tracing, have come to this point,” Maxi said recently.

With Jakarta on the brink of another deadly COVID-19 wave, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has instructed Anies to speed up vaccinations in the capital with an eye toward reaching herd immunity by August.

“We want Jakarta to vaccinate 100,000 people per day starting next week; it's [feasible] and it will go well,” Jokowi said during a meeting with Anies and Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin on Monday.

Jakarta needs to vaccinate 7.5 million out of its 10 million residents to reach herd immunity. Some 95 percent of Jakarta's 3 million priority residents have received their first jab so far. However, only around 62 percent have been fully vaccinated.

At the moment, the capital city is able to roll out around 70,000 jabs per day across its 511 health facilities, making it the province with the second-highest vaccine coverage in the country after Bali.

No lockdown

Despite the current case surges, neither the Jakarta administration nor the central government have any plans to impose stricter mobility restrictions to prevent the  further spread of the virus. Instead, the Health Ministry says it will continue enforcing the prevailing micro-scale public activity restrictions (PPKM Mikro) from June 15-28.

Maxi said last week that “the measures have been very effective" although low public compliance with health rules has "stopped us from achieving the best results”.

Under the current curbs, neighborhood units (RTs) and community units (RWs) are required to enforce restrictions that best suit their level of risk. The higher the risk of transmission, the tighter the restrictions that are enforced.

However, the scheme appears to be more lax compared with previous curbs, with shopping malls and restaurants allowed to stay open longer and offices and dine-in services resuming at half their maximum capacity.

Epidemiologist Pandu Riono from the University of Indonesia, who has advised the Jakarta government on COVID-19 policy, stated on his Twitter account that experts had warned the government over a potential surge in cases following the Idul Fitri holiday, and yet it did not implement a swift and proper response.

"We need to be worried [about our current situation], especially considering that new COVID-19 variants of concern have spread to Indonesia. The government needs to be courageous and quarantine regions with case surges," Pandu tweeted on Monday.

Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist at Griffith University in Australia, concurred, saying that cases would only continue surging, eventually peaking in the next few weeks.

"The government will face a difficult choice because the most effective strategy to control the spread of new virus variants is to increase tracing and testing, speed up vaccinations and impose lockdowns," Dicky told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Since COVID-19 swept the country in March last year, the government has insisted on avoiding any hard lockdowns for fear of economic collapse.

Jokowi previously said that sacrificing the economy was the same as sacrificing the lives of tens of millions of people, and that such a move was not even an option for the government.

Hundreds of thousands Jakarta residents stand to lose their livelihoods if the capital city goes into lockdown, especially those who work in the informal sector and depend on daily income, such as ride-hailing drivers, hawkers and domestic servants.

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